Written Answers

Friday 1 September 2000

Scottish Executive

Children

Karen Gillon (Clydesdale) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what measures are in place to tackle cruelty to children.

Peter Peacock: Local authorities have a duty under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 to promote and safeguard the welfare of children in need. Responsibility is exercised through the provision of appropriate services and, if necessary, by applying to the court for orders to protect children believed to be at risk, or by referring children to the Principal Reporter. Other statutory agencies have an important contribution to make and guidance issued in 1998 sets a framework for inter-agency co-operation.

  The Scottish Executive has introduced or is planning to introduce a further range of measures which either directly or indirectly will help to tackle child abuse. For example,

  a Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care will regulate, among other services, early education, day care and residential care for children and a Scottish Social Services Council will regulate the care workforce;

  the Children’s Services Development Fund is assisting the setting up a network of children’s rights officers around Scotland;

  a one-stop shop will be set up to assist in vetting applicants for posts that give access to children; and

  we are consulting on the setting up of an index of adults unsuitable to work with children.

  The Scottish Executive also makes grants to voluntary organisations active in the field of child protection.

Children’s Panels

Mrs Mary Mulligan (Linlithgow) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what allocations were made available for the operation of children’s panels in each local authority in the financial years 1998-99 and 1999-2000.

Peter Peacock: : The Scottish Executive made available £199.1 million of Grant Aided Expenditure in 1998-99 and £211 million in 1999-2000 for children’s services within social work. The allocation of a proportion of these resources to the operation of children’s panels is a matter for local authorities. Further information on Grant Aided Expenditure for children’s services is given in the following publications:

  Grant Aided Expenditure 1998-99 (Bib. number 8140)

  Grant Aided Expenditure 1999-00 (Bib. number 3274)

Children’s Panels

Mrs Mary Mulligan (Linlithgow) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what resources it provides directly to the children’s panel service.

Peter Peacock: Direct funding of children’s panels is the responsibility of local authorities. However, The Scottish Executive contributes funding to support the operation of the hearings system.

  In 1999-2000, £211 million was provided for children’s services under GAE. Local authority returns identify that they spent £1.269 million on the children’s hearings system. £215.6 million has been provided for 2000-01.

  In addition, the Scottish Executive is committed to providing £18.440 million to support the children’s hearings system in 2000-01. A breakdown of these costs is shown below:

  


Purpose 


£ million 




Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration 


14.151 




Youth Crime Review 


3.500 




Recruitment/Awareness 


0.274 




Training 


0.515 




Total 


18.440

Children’s Panels

Mrs Mary Mulligan (Linlithgow) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to alter the way training is provided for children’s panel members.

Peter Peacock: The duty to train panel members lies with local authorities. Scottish Ministers have discretion to assist and in March this year, announced the conclusions of a review of their support for the training of panel members. In the current year £428,000 is allocated to support panel member training in order to achieve the competencies set out in the document Children’s Panel Training: Design, Content And Evaluation , published in 1999.

Coast Protection

George Lyon (Argyll and Bute) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive whether funding is available for the improvement of sea defences to protect coastal towns which are vulnerable to flooding and, if not, whether it has any plans to implement such a scheme.

Sarah Boyack: The Scottish Executive makes funding available to local authorities on a case-by-case basis for approved coast protection schemes and confirmed flood prevention schemes. Schemes constructed by councils under the Coast Protection Act 1949 or the Flood Prevention (Scotland) Act 1961, to protect coastal towns from erosion or flooding respectively, attract grant subject to them meeting cost-benefit criteria.

Community Care

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what funds were allocated by it to (a) residential homes, (b) nursing homes, (c) respite care and (d) Care in the Community and what were the actual funds disbursed, broken down in each case by each local authority, in 1999-2000.

Iain Gray: The grant aided expenditure allocated to each local authority for services for home-based elderly, residential accommodation for the elderly and for other social work services for 1999-2000 is listed in the Scottish Executive document Grant Aided Expenditure 1999-2000 , which is available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre, Bib. No. 3274. It should be emphasised that grant aided expenditure assessments form a basis for the allocation of total central government grant to local authorities; they are not spending targets or guidelines.

  Figures for expenditure by local authorities are contained in the CIPFA publication Rating Review: Estimates of Income and Expenditure 1999-2000, also available in the Information Centre, Bib. No. 7547.

Community Care

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether local authority funding for care of the elderly in (a) residential homes, (b) nursing homes, (c) respite care and (d) Care in the Community is ring-fenced.

Iain Gray: Local authority funding for the categories of care for the elderly listed is not ring-fenced.

Drug Misuse

Kay Ullrich (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what the current average waiting time is to receive drug rehabilitation treatment in the Fife Health Board area and how this compares with recent years.

Iain Gray: Information on waiting times for drug rehabilitation treatment services is not collected centrally. We are, however, ensuring that such information is required as part of each Drug Action Team’s Corporate Action Plan from this year onwards.

Education

Fergus Ewing (Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-8647 by Mr Sam Galbraith on 24 July 2000, whether it will detail the criteria employed in awarding the amounts of additional financial resources for schools in each local authority and how those criteria were applied.

Mr Sam Galbraith: Details of the basis on which these resources were allocated are set out in Scottish Executive Education Department Circular 1/2000, copies of which are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe).

Rail Network

Mr Kenny MacAskill (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has for park and ride railway stations on the M8.

Sarah Boyack: I refer Mr MacAskill to my answer to question S1W-5369 on 13 April.

Rail Network

Mr Kenny MacAskill (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to support improved rail access from Lanarkshire to Edinburgh.

Sarah Boyack: Under the provisions made in the UK Transport Bill, introduced on 1 December 1999, the Scottish Ministers will be able to issue directions and guidance to the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) for passenger rail services that begin and end in Scotland (effectively the ScotRail franchise). Since the Bill has not completed its passage through Parliament at Westminster, the Scottish Ministers are not yet able to exercise these powers.

  We will, however, shortly be consulting on strategic priorities for Scotland’s railways as part of the process of developing these directions and guidance to the SRA. During this process we will give consideration to a wide range of issues, including proposals for improved rail access from Lanarkshire to Edinburgh.

Scottish Transport Group Pension Scheme

Mr Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive when the Minister for Transport and the Environment will provide a further reply to that of 4 May 2000 to Mr G McKay regarding the Scottish Transport Group Pension Scheme.

Sarah Boyack: My letter to you of 4 May, in response to the query by Mr McKay which you had raised with me, promised a further letter when complex processes involved in the wind-up of the STG pension schemes were complete. You also wrote to me on 28 June 2000 about this matter. The matter is under active consideration and I shall write again when I am in a position to make an announcement.

Transport

Mr Kenny MacAskill (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how much increased funding will be made available for transport in Scotland under the comprehensive spending review and when will this be available.

Sarah Boyack: I refer Mr MacAskill to answer given to S1W-9019.